The advent and proliferation of electronic computing devices provides a way for people to communicate with one another that is unfettered from many of the restrictions that accompany conventional means of communication. With the touch of a button, a person can instantly deliver a written electronic communication to its intended recipient as an e-mail. There is no need to put pen to paper, no need to seal an envelope, and no need to pay postage. E-mail is versatile, offering greatly extended functionality over conventional mail, and convenient, being deliverable from virtually any place at any time. This makes e-mail especially well-suited for doing business. In the corporate realm, success often depends upon the speed at which information is communicated, and in some instances, the ability to archive and sort that information.
As with many technologies, functionality and convenience sometimes come at a price. For e-mail, a feature having a potential for negative repercussions is the ability to blind-carbon-copy an e-mail recipient. By adding an e-mail account to an e-mail thread as a blind-carbon-copy account, the owner of the blind-carbon-copy account has the ability to receive and read the e-mail communications of others participating in the thread without their knowledge. This is sometimes necessary. For example, it provides a supervisor with oversight. If the supervisor sends a reply to an email of the e-mail thread, however, he reveals himself as having been a blind-carbon-copy recipient on the e-mail. For the participants of the e-mail thread, this can offend their sense of privacy.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present teachings. In addition, the description and drawings do not necessarily require the order presented. It will be further appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required.
The apparatus and method components have been represented, where appropriate, by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present teachings so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.